Walking the Iron Curtain: Booming Balkans

The borders of the Balkans have been splintered, cracked and remade countless times over centuries. Suspicions and hatreds, ancient and modern, still scar the landscape. Travelling through the southernmost regions bisected by the Iron Curtain, Mary-Ann Ochota meets the conservationists convinced that a shared love of the region's landscape and wildlife can heal division.

From Trieste in Italy, a staging post for generations of refugees- including the Ukranian exodus of 2022- she travels south-east to Lake Prespa where North Macedonia, Greece and Albania meet.

Conflict and poverty have driven people from this beautiful place but in their absence nature has thrived. Can joint efforts to protect the region's bears, lynx and endemic fish and flora boost the economy and persuade the young people to stay and the diaspora to return?

(Photo: Three Cold War borders meet in the centre of Lake Prespa, one of the most wildlife-rich places in Europe)